Faith in Hebrews

I have just finished writing a fifteen page paper on the concept of faith in the epistle to the Hebrews, as part of my Hebrews class. In writing this paper, I have confirmed to my satisfaction what my professor suggested earlier, namely that true faith has three elements: a word or revelation from God, trust of that word or revelation, and actions based on that trust.

A study of all the examples of faith in Hebrews 11 seems to strongly support this idea. Below are a look at a few of the examples where this is most clearly evinced:
1. Noah and the Ark
First Noah was "warned by God" (Heb. 11.7). This was the word of God to him. Having understood this word, he had a "reverent fear," that is, a trust that what God had said was in fact true, and, in obedience resulting from that trust, "constructed an ark" (Heb. 11.7).
2. Abraham and Isaac
Abraham, having received promises to be fulfilled through Isaac, received also a command to sacrifice his son. Trusting that God was able to raise up his son from the dead, and to then fulfill the promises through him, he carried out the command to sacrifice his son until God stopped him. We see here that Abraham had such complete trust in the promises of God that he trusted that even the death of the one through whom the promises were to be realised could not hinder God. And because of this trust in the word of God, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son. The three elements of faith – the word of God, trust based on that word, and obedience resulting from that trust – are here clearly existent.
3. Moses and the Passover
In this example, the word was the revelation concerning the Passover delivered to Moses in Genesis 12.1-25. Moses trusted this word of God, and acted in obedience to it so that “the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them” (Heb. 11.28).

This conception of faith has implications for two kinds of people: the skeptic non-Christian who thinks Christian faith is blind, baseless, and irrational, and the Christian who thinks he can live in faith without showing evidence of his faith by obedient works. It shows the skeptic non-Christian that our trust is based on a word of one whom we have found to be faithful, and it shows the luke-warm Christian that true faith always results in obedient works.